Thankfully, one of my fellow students, Bryan, who I have sorta paired up during the day with was in this group so I knew I had someone to talk to and whatnot. We ended up in a bar because it was pouring outside and had TVs and ate dinner (my second in the day, though the first was really light). The dinner was this barbaque of sorts where there is a grill in the center of the table and beef and pork are thrown on the grill and the people sitting at the table are in charge of flipping the meat and cutting it up (with scissors) to make it cook to their desire. Cool concept. Also, we drank (there will be notes on this later), some more than others. The poison of the evening was beer (standard) and Soju (spelling?).
Soju, to those unfamiliar, is a kind of fermented wine alcohol. It tasted very smooth going down and had a bit of a kick of an aftertaste. It was alright- possibly not my first choice, but not a bad drink for the evening. It is drunk in shotglasses much like any liquor in the US. The closest thing I could relate it to is a vodka.
So, back to the game. Above is the picture of our party. The bar/restaurant was hopping. I have NEVER seem that many people excited and yelling at once for a sporting event. Ever. EVER. It was so paplable that every time Korea was close to scoring a goal, it was like a wall of sound that emerged for just twenty seconds at a time.
That being said, there was quite a bit of drinking as Korea was down for most of the game. One of our party members, a girl named Carolyn, was drinking quite heavily. She was smaller than me in build and stature and was drinking for twice her weight. Bryan tried to get her to slow down, but she didn't care. This would be a sign of things to come.
The game was interesting, mostly because of the excitement but came to a saddening close. The bar patrons, instead of getting angry, just took the loss like "Oh well, it was not a bad run." Anyone who has watched a Steelers/Browns game knows that fans of either team don't take losing very well, but these people just took the loss in stride.
I had a few patrons not at my table ask me where I was from. "USA," I responded "Migook." To which a few who were possibly quite inebriated, said "I like USA!" to which I responded (to their glee) "I like Korea." In fact, one female patron, probably in her late twenties came up to me and asked for one of her male companions to take a picture of the two of us. I'm flattered; it's nice being the token white guy. Or I'd be the guy they'd be laughing about later: "Remember that one guy? Oh my goodness did he look dumb." Either way, the attention was kinda nice, not going to lie.
Afterwards, we headed for a Kareoke bar (this was at about 1:30AM). Kareoke is different in Korea than the US. The setup is such that your party rents out a room for X Won for an hour. The room that the Kareoke is in is small, probably the size of a larger dorm room and is outfitted with couches, two microphones and a TV. No one else can hear you sing except for the people in the room. Neat concept. But, the same basic concepts are there- put numbers into a machine which displays the lyrics and sing along. A new twist though was that the TV/microphones scored you out of 100% on songs. Though, the scoring was dubious as during the songs where no one was singing directly into one mike, it still managed to get in the low 90s.
Anyways during this portion of the evening, Carolyn, who had drunk far more than her share was hardly verticle. While I didn't see what happened myself directly, she was basically helped out of the Kareoke room to the bathroom where most likely the usual happened: the veneration of the porcelain god.
At the point, we lost two people of our group who took Carolyn back to her room. It was around 2:30 in the morning and I was feeling a bit tired and such. But, the room was still good for another hour (the guy running the machine credited us the time that we lost due to people attending to our severely inebriated party member) so we stayed on, much to my sorta grumbling. I was tired.
But I sang on a few songs, though was only on the mic alone for one "Something there to remind me." There are a couple of inside jokes within my family with that song, so I just had to do it. 98% if you were wondering. Oh yes. Take *that* Singstar. :P There was a good selection of American and Korean music, but sadly, I didn't know much of the Korean at all, so we defaulted to American more often than not.
We left the place around 3:00AM, at which point I realized that my entry into the room at such a late/early hour may disturb my roommate. Sighing and hoping he wouldn' be upset, I sorta nudged the group back to Hanyang. However, there seemed to be other plans.
Out of the group of 8 or so of us, one kid got the munchies. And lo and behold if the whole group didn't have to stop to get him something to eat and wandered around part of Seoul looking for place that would work.
Interesting thing about Seoul, I've found, is that the city doesn't go to sleep at around 1 or 2 like in the US. No, the streets were alive with people eating and drinking and partying even until I got back to the dorm around 4 (more on how I got there later). But, everyone seemed to be awake and just going about their own business like it would be around 10:00 in a city in the US. Apparently, it wasn't just a World Cup thing that everyone stayed up for (the game started at 11:00PM local) but according to a few other group members, this was something that was done every night. The trade off is that the city is basically dead until noon.
So, moving along, after 15 or so minutes looking for a place for this kid to get something to eat, the tired/frustrated me and also Bryan (though I don't think he was frustrated, just tired) decided to head back to the dorm on foot as we departed. After about twenty or so minutes and one wrong turn when we got onto campus. Opening my door cautiously, I found that my roommate wasn't in. Wiping semi-invisible sweat from my brow, I crashed onto my bed and felt the urge to update this blog.
However, my connection wasn't working. I don't understand why it works sometimes and not others. It's frustrating. I asked a Korean kid in the lounge if he knew how to make it work and he embarked upon a journey to wake up a computer expect who lived in the dorm (which made me feel like a collossal jerk, though said expert seemed ok with it, oddly enough). He put in the same information that I had and nodded, saying that it was "ok."
I tried to log on after he and the other kid left, but failed. Groaning, I walked around the dorm. Possibly there were open free computers somewhere, no? After scouring the basemenet and finding a few nice study halls which had books and papers on every subject- I recognized calculus and organic chemistry- my search was in vain. The strangest book I found there, though I didn't open it (not my property) was on gaining an "American" accent. Interesting stuff. So, no open computers.
Feeling saddened by my misfortune and not wanting to bother the computer expert kid again, I rebooted my computer and the internet worked. YAY! Ahem. So, I finally got to send out an email or two and actually post today. I'm going to resolve to search for open computers on campus. I heard there some at the business building but stupid me forgot to take the map of the school that my mom printed out. Urgh. It'll be an adventure. But for now, I should rest. It's been a long day.
-Reven
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